The property market continues to boil. The race for space has become a marathon. There is still a scramble to buy even a chicken coop to convert. The latest cry is ‘take to the boats!’

In my previous article about buying a place in the country, I bemoaned what was and still is an overheated housing market. We intend to buy a place with land, start up a smallholding, and boost our income by doing some holiday rentals. While experiencing the frustrations of buying a place, we also got to learn some of the ins and outs of the process of gaining planning permission.